


Sometimes You Just Get Kidnapped

by local_doom_void



Series: Triumph [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Kidnapping, Sane Voldemort (Harry Potter)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-03
Updated: 2020-05-03
Packaged: 2021-03-01 19:55:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23992639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/local_doom_void/pseuds/local_doom_void
Summary: Potter, kidnapping – TakethreeTakefourTakehowever bloody many.Excerpted from Lord Voldemort's personal notes, circa June, 1996.
Series: Triumph [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1734892
Comments: 7
Kudos: 107





	Sometimes You Just Get Kidnapped

**Author's Note:**

> Another oneshot bites the dust...

In a way, Voldemort thought it was nearly comedic.

Time enough there had been to interrogate Severus Snape on Potter’s summer whereabouts. And oh, the hilarity when Severus mentioned muggle relations. He had barely kept himself from cackling right then and there in the grand hall of Malfoy Manor, for really, truly, here was Albus Dumbledore’s final mistake – the nail in the old coot’s proverbial coffin. The timeless adage of the Pureblooded, that the muggle world was bewildering, confusion, obfuscated from all logic – that it was unnavigable, that nothing could be found there save for stumbling upon it by accident – all of that ignorance, Voldemort thought, and somehow, the very man who was supposed to like muggles never saw fit to avail himself of a simple tutorial from a graduating muggleborn.

Then again, the Dark Lord mused, whoever could have predicted the Yellow Pages, or census records?

Petunia Evans married Vernon Dursley. The Dursleys, Vernon and Petunia, lived at 4 Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey. As he was wearing clothing that quite frankly allowed him to pass for some sort of eccentric muggle businessman, he decided that he would simply take the train.

They were rather odious muggles, when all was said and done. There was a ward around their property as well, and Voldemort did not disturb it lest his presence here be discovered. But the fat man left the property to go to work, and it was easy to slap a tracking charm on the car once it had gotten far enough away from the wardline. At the office at which the odious man worked, it was easy to slip in – easy to cast an Imperius – easy to rifle through a similarly odious mind and pluck up all the information he needed.

One wondered why Potter could bear to be in the same room as Albus Dumbledore. But Voldemort digressed, and obliviated his muggle informant before hopping out the window and flying away on a cloud of disillusioned smoke.

He landed, still disillusioned, on the roof of King’s Cross Station, and crouched down behind an architectural outcropping to think.

  


* * *

  


Some days later, on June 30th, a particular tracking-charmed car drove up the street near King’s Cross Station. Voldemort, sitting cross-legged on the rooftop and watching with mild interest, slapped a particularly strong _tractatum alienorum_ ward on the outside, dropped down as the car was parking, and yanked open the door before hexing the muggles inside into unconscious submission. The woman he shrank and shoved into the trunk – the odious man, he used as the base for a doppelgänger spell, and once Voldemort had slipped inside said doppelgänger, he shrunk the man as well and shoved him on top of his wife, before slamming the trunk closed.

Perhaps they would suffocate. One could only hope, after all.

The Dark Lord took a few steps, to get used to the proportions of the constructed ‘suit’ he wore, and walked into the station.

There were already trunks stamped with blatant Hogwarts crests streaming through the muggle crowd towards the parking garages, tugged along by harried looking parents or by children who clearly had not remembered to tuck away one remnant or another of wizarding culture. Voldemort sneered, not even bothering to hide it, for even though it would show on the doppelgänger’s form, it certainly didn’t seem a reaction amiss for the man he was impersonating.

He came, finally, close enough to Platform 9¾ that he felt he need go no farther, and stood back to wait. The Dark Lord was soon rewarded when a mousy-haired man with dreadful bags beneath his eyes stumbled into the crowds, stared around, and laid eyes on Voldemort, who recognised him.

The werewolf approached. Voldemort stiffened, and again reveled that in this disguise he did not have to just barely contain his general disgust, and did not have to keep hidden the tensing of his muscles.

“Hi,” Remus Lupin said, and did not notice the Dark Lord behind Vernon Dursley’s skin. “Can I have a – just a moment?”

Voldemort quickly thought about what Vernon Dursley might do, and decided to grumble noncommittally.

“It’s Harry,” Lupin said, and made an expression which Voldemort supposed might have been intended to elicit sympathy, but which really just made the lycanthrope look quite pathetic. “He’s been through quite a lot just recently, you know. There was a bit of a – of a fiasco with some followers of the man who killed his parents. You’re all safe, of course, don’t worry, but Harry’s – ” An audible gulp and a moment to collect himself, during which Voldemort debated whether or not to scowl at the mention of that particular fiasco.

“He lost his god – godfather,” Lupin said brokenly. “So just – give him some space maybe? While he recovers. It’s been hard on all of us, and – ”

Then he turned away and began to cry, most distastefully, in public no less.

Voldemort settled for a “Hrm” sort of noise, and nodded, which was just enough to say he had understood the message, but not enough to commit to any form of agreement. It wasn’t clear if it would have mattered anyway, for the werewolf nearly fled to a nearby bathroom. Voldemort supposed, if he were to give him any kind of benefit of the doubt, that he intended to collect himself and wash his face off so nobody could tell he had been sobbing.

He would be quite glad when he could get home after this frightful errand and relax. Ideally with Nagini on his lap, and a glass of wine in his hand.

But – _there_. The boy.

Harry Potter.

Voldemort did not smile, though he felt quite the urge to do so. But this wasn’t a particularly happy occasion for Vernon Dursley, and so he forced the expression to remain within him. There were those two children around Potter, and a plump red-haired woman hovering over the lot of them whose voice made Voldemort wish to draw his wand and shout _Avada_ right then and there. The tall, lanky redhead looked distant yet worried – the girl’s brown eyes were darting this way and that across the station, but not once did they land on Voldemort for any length of time longer than a quick scowl and a pointedly averted gaze.

Oh, he thought with amusement. If they only knew.

Potter looked distant. Potter, Voldemort noticed, also looked quite terrible – rivaling the werewolf for bagged eyes. One would almost think they had something in common.

The boy would not look up, and Voldemort finally lost his patience once the werewolf remerged from the bathroom.

“Boy,” he snapped. “I don’t have time for lollygagging, your aunt needs to be taken to her appointment.”

It drew him dirty looks from most involved. But Voldemort was quite unaffected by dirty looks, and legilimency had informed him that dirty looks were not unusual for this particular muggle, so he did absolutely nothing to soften his stance. Instead, he crossed his arms and tapped his foot against the floor. The thought to look pointedly at his wrist crossed his mind – but Voldemort had not bothered to double check which wrist the muggle wore his watch on, so he did not do it.

The boy marched over to him defiantly, and Voldemort felt a fierce joy trying to take his ribs – but no, he couldn’t smile just yet, for he would give the game away. He forced his face into a contortion that might have passed for a scowl, but which was enough to hide the quirking of his lips, and turned to walk away without so much as a glance back at the other assorted magicals. The boy walked with him, and Voldemort was still excited. Yet Potter was also clearly nervous about something, eyes darting across the crowd and head jerking to and fro like an agitated bird. Vernon Dursley would not have cared at all, so Voldemort made no comment, and instead kept a close eye on him to ensure he did not suddenly try to bolt. The most glorious thing was that a close, suspicious eye even made sense for the doppelgänger he wore, and so he did not even need to try and be surreptitious about it.

“Uncle Vernon?” the boy said slowly, softly, as they were nearly at the parking strip. Voldemort had been careful to bring them towards a side of the building which was not where the real Dursleys had left their car. “We might have to – there might be somebody following us.”

Oh?

Voldemort eyed Harry Potter suspiciously, which he thought was warranted both from Vernon Dursley, odious muggle, as well as from Lord Voldemort, in-progress kidnapper. “What nonsense are you on about now?” he asked.

“Look, just – I just know – sometimes,” Potter said almost desperately. “There’s this man who, when he’s around, my scar hurts, and I can feel him now. He’s not close but he’s following us.” The boy’s head did yet another turn around the area. “We should go back. Tonks and Remus will still be – ”

“I think not,” Voldemort said firmly, because that was something he needed to put a stop to right away. “We’re going to the car, boy, come on.”

With one hand he yanked the trunk from Potter’s grasp, leaving him with only the cage holding his ostentatious owl. The boy flinched back as if stung, and Voldemort did not care, as he reached out and wrapped his other hand around the closest upper arm.

There was no skin on skin contact. There were two layers of clothing between their respective bodies, and indeed, one of those layers was a pair of enchanted, magically insulated gloves currently gracing Voldemort’s hands, and he could think of no other precautions he could have taken to be more thorough aside from not bothering to show up at all.

But there was no telling how long the enchantment would last against reactive, irritable magic, and so Voldemort began to walk more quickly. Soon they had cleared the main building, almost to that one spot on the wall which Voldemort had previously warded with another _tractatum alienorum_ , and the boy finally seemed to emerge from his daze.

“Uncle Vernon – come _on_ he’s getting closer! I can feel him – ”

“I said we have to get your aunt to her appointment, boy!” Voldemort scoffed. “There’s no time for this.”

“What appointment, anyway?” the boy said defiantly. He tugged on his arm as if to free it, but Voldemort held fast. “And where’s the car? You never park over here – ”

A number of things happened all at once.

A tingle like a faint electric shock raced up Voldemort’s arm as the enchantments on the one glove gave up the ghost and rendered it a normal, slightly singed glove. Potter gasped and nearly crumpled to the floor as he pressed a hand to his forehead. A muggle traffic cop looked as if they were about to turn their head. Voldemort gave up on subtlety, surged forwards, and jumped into the warded zone, dragging Potter along with him. And, almost predictably, the doppelgänger spell began to wear off.

In the brief moment before he could finish turning on his heel, Voldemort heard Potter screaming.

“TONKS!” the boy screeched. “REMUS! _REMUS!_ HERMIONE – ”

And then the cold, dull silence of apparition.

He hadn’t really intended to bring the trunk and the owl with him, but he supposed he should have expected to have to do that.

The spell had been wiped clean off of his body by the translocation. Voldemort used the momentum of landing to swing Potter’s body at the floor, knocking the wind from his lungs. Apparently the boy wasn’t used to side-along apparition either, for he looked quite pale and nauseus. Voldemort took pity and drew his wand, was honestly impressed when Potter still managed to try rolling out of the way, and stupefied the child unceremoniously.

“Hello, Harry,” Voldemort said, crouching over the unconscious boy and finally allowing himself to grin. “How nice to see you so soon.”

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this is a oneshot, and will not have any continuation.


End file.
